On the Book Cart

The new Susan Elizabeth Phillips title What I Did for Love is on the cart this week; it tells the story of Georgie York, a sitcom star who has recently been very publicly dumped by her husband and ends up with a fake marriage after eloping with a former costar. This one looks like a lot of fun! Other contemporary titles include The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O’Neal, The Girl Most Likely To... by Susan Donovan, and For the Love of Pete by Julia Harper. Kaye Dacus brings us the contemporary inspirational Stand-In Groom, a story of wedding planning and assumed identities. The Viscount Claims His Bride by Bronwyn Scott and The Highland Groom by Sarah Gabriel are the only two historical entries this week. Karen Rose’s Scream for Me and Elisabeth Naughton’s Stolen Fury are both romantic suspense, and the lone paranormal is At Grave’s End by Jeaniene Frost. Place your requests and get some new reading material before the next snowstorm – because you know there will be one!

On the Book Cart

Many new arrivals this week, including the long awaited first novel by Princess of Genovia Mia Thermopolis, with an assist from Princess Diaries author Meg Cabot. Cabot, in the guise of her fictional creation Mia, has penned Ransom My Heart, a grown up love story full of the same quirky charm as her well known Diaries, with the proceeds going to Greenpeace.
Contemporary romances include a romantic suspense story from Cindy Gerard, Whisper No Lies. Other comtemporary titles include Lisa Dale’s Simple Wishes, Victoria Dahl’s Talk Me Down, Carly Phillips’ Secret Fantasy, and Alison Kent’s Maximum Exposure.
Christine Feehan’s Murder Game leads off the paranormal category, which also includes Shiloh Walker’s The Missing and Barbara Bretton’s Casting Spells.
Historicals include an inspirational co-authored by Davis Bunn and Janette Oke called The Centurion’s Wife, the story of a young woman in an arranged marriage who learns to know both her husband and herself in the tumultuous events surrounding the birth of Christianity. Victoria Alexander presents The Perfect Wife, while Loretta Chase brings us Lord Perfect. Anna Campbell’s heroine decides to Tempt the Devil, while Lorraine Heath’s is caught Between the Devil and Desire. Check the catalog and request your favorites now.

February Romantic Times is here!

The February RT is their 300th issue, and includes an entertaining time capsule filled with stories from early on, complete with grainy photos of well known authors (see Nora Roberts with an ‘80s perm!) There is also a feature on three friends and rising stars in the genre: Jami Alden, Bella Andre, and Monica McCarty. Other cover stories include an interview with author Val McDermid and a discussion of addiction as a storyline in historical romance. Nominees for RT’s Best Books and Authors of 2008 are included; see if you agree with the reviewers’ choices. Author spotlights feature Kristin Higgins, Jade Lee, Tina Wainscott, Helen Scott Taylor, and Jill Sorensen. As always, there are 250 book reviews to help you decide what to read next.

Running Hot

Running Hot
By Jayne Ann Krentz

The newest of the contemporary Arcane Society novels has arrived and I finished it in two nights! It has the author’s trademark fast pace and great character development. From the attention grabbing opening line, “Martin was going to kill her” we know that our heroine is not going to have an easy time. While I am always prejudiced in favor of a librarian as leading lady, Grace Renquist is truly likeable; she’s had a rough time and managed to survive on brains and ingenuity. Her incredible ability to read auras, strong even by Arcane Society standards, helps her keep one step ahead of the bad guys. The hero, Luther Malone, is also an aura talent, one who can read the auras of others and use his own to manipulate theirs. This skill came in handy in his former life as a police detective, and still does in his current life as a bartender and sometime J&J operative. Though Luther has a bad leg and uses a cane due to a gunshot injury on a previous J&J case, he compensates well and gets assigned to bodyguard duty when Fallon Jones sends Grace to Hawaii to ID a suspected multiple murderer. Should be a quick, easy job, but things get complicated when the two run into a veritable convention of paranormal talents and realize they’ve stumbled onto a meeting of a small group of members of Nightshade, the renegades within the society who are determined to recreate the legendary Founder’s Formula. Throw in a couple of unexpected assassins with exotic talents and a supporting cast of quirky characters, and even the inimitable Fallon Jones can’t predict where the plot will go next.
Running Hot is another strong entry into the Arcane Society lineup, with an intricate plot and a great cast of characters. Those who haven’t read the previous contemporary Arcane Society books might find the Nightshade plot a little confusing, but Krentz provides enough background to make it manageable. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment. Based on a few of Grace’s comments near the end of this book, I am hoping that we will finally get to meet Fallon Jones, and that Fallon will get to meet his match....

On the Book Cart

There are three contemporary romances on the cart this week: Beverly Barton’s Dying for You is straight romantic suspense, Divorced, Desperate and Dating by Christie Craig is more of a romantic comedy caper, and Talk of the Town by Karen Hawkins is a “What happens when you go back to your hometown and the hot guy from high school is now the single sheriff” type of book. Parnormal titles include the last of Nora Robert’s Sign of Seven trilogy, The Pagan Stone, as well as the anthology Dead After Dark, featuring stories by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Susan Squires, and others. We also have Julie Leto’s Phantom’s Touch and Linda Winstead Jones’ 22 Nights. There are quite a few historical titles: Eloisa James’ When the Duke Returns, Connie Brockway’s My Surrender, Kathryn Caskie’s To Sin With a Stranger, Lydia Joyce’s Wicked Intentions, Elizabeth Boyle’s Tempted by the Night, and Hannah Lowell’s Highland Sinner.

The Wallflowers, Continued

The Devil in Winter
Evangeline Jenner has a problem: she is about to inherit an extraordinary amount of money. How is that a problem? Her dying father runs a notorious gambling hall, and her bourgeois and avaricious relatives (on her dead mother’s side) are more than a little anxious to get their hands on it. Since the shy, stuttering Evie has not managed to marry a titled man to improve the family’s social connections, they have decided that even a tainted fortune is better than none, and have determined that she shall marry her cousin. Evie may be shy, but she’s not stupid, and she figures her likelihood of surviving long after the wedding is pretty slim. So she does what any intelligent young woman in her predicament would do: she seeks out the incredibly handsome and equally notorious Sebastian, Viscount St. Vincent, a rake of ancient lineage and empty bank account, and proposes marriage. Presenting herself at his door late one wintry night, she suggests that as they are both equally desperate, they immediately elope to Gretna Green, wed, consummate the marriage, and then go about living their separate lives, each of their problems solved. Sebastian is intrigued. While he has met Evie before, he saw only a shy, stuttering girl. Now confronted with the risk-taking redhead, he notes that while she may stammer, she’s no dummy and no shrinking violet. She’s got a good plan, is rather attractive, and of course, there’s all that lovely money to consider. So Sebastian agrees, and off they go. The elopement turns out to be the easy part; returning to London and dealing with the death of Evie’s father, her inheritance of his wealth and gambling establishment, and the greedy, angry relatives she left behind is more of a challenge. And then there are the newlyweds growing feelings for each other. Evie does not wish to be the devoted wife of a philandering husband, and Sebastian has no wish to be in love –ever, with anyone. The two try to come to some sort of workable compromise while someone makes every attempt to kill one or both. Can true love conquer kidnappings and gunfire?



Scandal in Spring
Daisy Bowman has had three seasons to find a titled husband. According to her father, she’s had more than enough time, and he’s spent more than enough money. If she cannot bring someone “up to scratch” by summer, Daisy will marry the man her father chooses for her. Much to Daisy’s dismay, he has chosen Matthew Swift, the second-in-command in the Bowman business dealings. Mr. Bowman loves Matthew Swift like a son, and wants nothing more than to bring him into the family fold and put him in charge of the business one day. Daisy remembers Matthew as ungainly, aloof, and boring. Boring. If only it were still so. When Daisy encounters Matthew again, he has grown into a handsome and confident man. But still, Daisy is convinced that he has hatched this plan with her father to get his hounds on the Bowman millions and she refuses to play along. Matthew, who has been in love with Daisy since the moment he met her years ago, was not part of her father’s plan, refuses to marry her with or without her consent. Both are miffed, and begin a battle of wills that turns to flirtation and eventually real affection. That’s when Daisy finds out just how not boring Matthew is, and has to decide if the secrets from his past will rule out a future.

A Wallflower for All Seasons

Or more accurately, a Wallflower for each season, and there is a bonus Christmas book, to boot. This series of linked historical romances from author Lisa Kleypas follows the adventures (and misadventures) of four young ladies in search of husbands. Annabelle Peyton, Evangeline Jenner, and Lillian and Daisy Bowman all have a few things to recommend them, and a few things that keep them sitting on the sidelines, with empty dance cards and dwindling matrimonial prospects. Annabelle has no dowry, and since the death of her father a few years previously, her family is in increasingly desperate financial straits. Evangeline is the result of an elopement between a genteel young lady and Cockney prize fighter who went on to run a gaming club. Lillian and Daisy are the daughters of an incredibly wealthy American businessman; they were unable to find husbands in the upper echelons of New York society and are having no better luck in the even more gentrified world of the British peerage. After more than a season of sitting next to one another at social events, watching the rest of the world dance by, the girls decide to join forces. They reason that by taking turns helping each other find a suitable spouse, they are far more likely to be successful. They decide to start with Annabelle, who is not only the oldest, but who also has the most to lose if she does not find a well to do husband by the end of the season. Will she find a suitable husband, or will her deeply hidden desire for true love lead to –

Secrets of a Summer Night
Annabelle Peyton’s time is running out. Her father’s death has left the family finances in disarray, and her mother has been forced to form a rather unpleasant association with the loathsome Lord Hodgeham to get some of the bills paid. In her fourth season and with no dowry, Annabelle knows that without an offer of marriage before summer, she will have no option but to become a rich man’s mistress. Businessman Simon Hunt decides that he will be that man. The butcher’s son made a fortune in industry, and is now in business with some of the bluest blood in the realm. Annabelle has fascinated him for years, and he is disgusted with the way his so-called social betters are waiting for her to get desperate enough to take one of them as a lover. Simon is determined to make Annabelle his, and Annabelle is determined to marry a peer and not just sell herself. Sparks fly between them, but can they get past social snobbery and financial considerations to form a real relationship?

It Happened One Autumn
Lillian Bowman is brash, adventurous, irreverant and outspoken. In short, she is everything that Marcus, the Earl of Westcliffe, despises in a woman. The fact that she is an upstart American heiress leaves him cold. Unlike many of his peers in the peerage, Marcus has some very progressive ideas about managing the family finances, and so has no need of the Bowman millions. Doing business with the father is one thing, marrying the daughter is something else entirely. Besides, Lillian makes no secret of the fact that she finds him snobbish, autocratic, and generally obnoxious. She stands up to him like no one else dares to, which is alternately infuriating and refreshing. And there was that memorable afternoon when he found her playing a brisk game of rounders with the other Wallflowers – in her knickers. Perhaps she does have a few things to recommend her. As Marcus unbends sufficiently to reveal his kindness and humor, Lillian begins to mellow. But there those among the aristocracy who are desperate to get their hands on the Bowman fortune, and those who are horrified at the thought of Lord Westcliffe marrying a soap company heiress. Can a little conniving keep Lillian and Marcus apart?

Tomorrow: Winter (Evie) and Spring (Daisy)